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1. To address the issue of political violence against nationalities and their cultural oppression—such as depriving them of education in their mother tongue or other forms of violence—we need to take the concept of violence out of its abstract form and ground it in reality to understand its nature and reasoning. The best approach to diagnosing the causes of violence against nationalities is to first examine the anatomy of the concept of violence itself and then to look into the specific reasons for enacting violence against these groups. When violence is analyzed merely in an abstract manner, its reasoning and essence remain concealed, leading some to attribute it solely to factors like ideology, revolution, or the use of arms. Following this logic, the absence of ideology, preference for peaceful and legal methods, and opposition to any revolution may be seen as a means to counter violence.
There is no doubt that certain ideologies, as well as revolutions, may be related to violence, though not necessarily so. Similarly, the use of arms is undoubtedly linked to violence, but it does not inherently explain the essence of violence, as weapons may sometimes be employed to preserve peace rather than to exert violence. In the same way, peaceful methods are not devoid of coercive essence, and the law is merely a sword in disguise.
Violence is a form of coercive relationship aimed at preserving the status quo or changing a social relation. In this effort to maintain or alter a social relationship, force as a reflection of social power plays a decisive role, although it is not necessarily inseparable from violence. The distinction between the ideas of revolution and violence is significant in this context, as they merely represent forms of relation and do not have an organic link. Historical examples exist of revolutions that did not proceed violently, while in most cases, violence has been used to prevent revolution.
All social relations are always based on a certain balance of power relations, or relationships of power, and these power relations are essentially forms of coercion. The intertwined and concentrated combination of coercion and violence in any society resides at the top of the social hierarchy, and the closer we move from the base to the apex—especially in institutions such as the state—the more apparent this combination becomes. Violence in this sense represents an organized and collective form in maintaining the status quo or resisting attempts at change, and coercion forms the essence and foundation of these social relationships, forming the subject of preservation or change within these social relations. When the dominant political and economic power is unchallenged, the prevailing coercion in social relations adopts a peaceful and harmonious appearance under the guise of lawful relations. Thus, coercion can also take a peaceful form. Mass peaceful movements also carry an element of coercion without necessarily becoming violent. Likewise, when a court issues a verdict, it exercises a form of coercion, which is a manifestation of an organized and collective coercion that apparently does not involve violence. It “exercises power” in a way that would not be enforceable without the backing of coercion, and if necessary, this coercion can take the form of violence. What “forces compliance” with a court ruling is not the court’s peaceful approach but the latent coercion behind the ruling. Perhaps Thomas Hobbes’ classic 17th-century statement, “If you remove the sword from behind the court, you’ve wasted the court’s time because no one will obey it,” reflects this reality.
In a hypothetical situation where the government has banned demonstrations and issued an ultimatum to suppress them, and protesters refrain from taking to the streets, coercion has actually been exercised without any physical encounter or contact. Therefore, distinguishing the concept of coercion from violence is crucial in understanding social relations and the various forms of political struggles. Coercion forms the foundation of all social, political, and economic relations in any society, and thus, all political and social struggles inherently express power relations, which are nothing more than coercive relationships within a particular balance of forces. When we talk about violence, we are essentially referring to a specific form of coercive relationship as a social phenomenon, not simply an isolated form. Every act of violence, as a social phenomenon, pursues a specific goal, and violence for violence’s sake lacks meaning. Attributing violence solely to an individual’s aggressive nature removes it from its social context, stripping it of its characteristic as a phenomenon and atomizing it. For example, individuals like Khomeini, Ghilani, Assadollah Lajevardi, and Sheikh Sadegh Khalkhali, despite having savage spirits, were unable to exercise violence before gaining access to power—where coercion and concentrated violence crystallize within the state apparatus. This fact alone reveals the core locus of coercion and its manifestations, whether in the “peaceful” guise of the law or in its armored form as violence in any society.
Behind the exercise of violence are social forces and institutions of violence. If those benefiting from violence gain no specific material advantage from it, they would have no reason to exercise it. Thus, behind acts of violence lie ideological objectives and specific political, economic, and social interests. Those who attribute violence to the abstract realms of revolution or ideology in a generalized way overlook the actual and potential beneficiaries of violence and reduce violence to a mere psychological or abstract factor. Even if, in a short-term arc, ideology rules over politics, economy, and society, in the long run, the economic interests of a group will prevail over ideology, even if they continue to speak the language of that ideology.
Today, thirty-one years have passed since the revolution, and the population of Iran at that time was less than thirty-five million. Now, without counting millions of exiles and emigrants and the deceased, the population has exceeded seventy-five million. A significant portion of the thirty-five million during the revolution were infants or under ten to twelve years old. Therefore, excluding those who opposed the revolution at that time, it can be said that perhaps more than two-thirds of Iran’s population had no participation in the revolution or its atmosphere. Additionally, many of the forces driving repression had no connection to the revolution and were not even born at the time. Nevertheless, violence continues to prevail in Iranian society. One must ask why. It is as clear as daylight that, over the past thirty-one years, violence has been systematically exercised by the Islamic Republic as a means of preserving its survival, with those who benefit from this violence standing behind it. Without such violence, they might not have achieved their objectives. These beneficiaries of violence can be divided into two main groups: first, the privileged elite who maintain close ties with political power, and second, the broader social spectrum within Iran’s multi-national society, where political power centered on the Persian nationality directly or indirectly serves their common interests. My reference to this aspect of violence concerns the violence against nationalities, not all forms and objectives embedded within it.
Logically, no sound-minded person can support violence, and on the surface, everyone seems to oppose it. But today, opposition to violence has become more like the fashionable color of the season than a genuine opposition rooted in understanding the continual birth of violence and identifying the reasons and essence behind its reproduction in society. Today, everyone claims to support human rights, yet human rights are more disregarded than ever, and many human rights advocates remain silent about various forms of violence perpetrated by the Islamic Republic. Everyone speaks of women’s rights, but women face more overt oppression than ever before. Today, democracy has become a buzzword among intellectuals and some reformist circles, but any expression of legitimate demands by ethnic groups in Iran is violently suppressed under the label of “separatism,” and the overwhelming majority of these human rights and democracy advocates pass by this ongoing violence with silent approval. So, how is it that everyone claims to oppose violence, yet violence has taken stronger hold over political and social relations than ever?
To understand this, we need to move beyond the visible forms of violence to examine the unseen violence that underpins these visible acts. Violence against ethnic groups is one visible form of violence, which follows its own laws of preservation and reproduction. This cycle of reproducing and sustaining various forms of violence is constantly fed by a hidden structural foundation embedded within the state, economic, and social relationships. I refer to this as “structural violence,” which has persisted for eighty-five years in relation to ethnic groups, resulting in ongoing violence at various levels in Iranian society. Violence, repression, and oppression are all different manifestations of coercion and specific power relations. In this sense, violence against ethnic groups is structurally rooted, just as violence against women in the Islamic Republic is structurally rooted and forms part of the regime’s political-ideological structure regarding women. Violence against ethnic groups is similarly fueled by the single-nationality structure of the Islamic Republic and its monarchical predecessor during the Pahlavi era. In other words, violence arises from a specific structure and is maintained by specific social forces, which in the case of Iran is the political power oriented toward the general interests of a specific nationality, namely Persian, and this governing political power drives the prevailing violence. As long as this “structural violence” persists, whether in the context of women or ethnic groups, we will continuously witness its reproduction.
To eliminate the various visible forms of violence against ethnic groups, the structural source that sustains it must be dismantled. Here, we must distinguish between the repressive apparatus in a classic dictatorship, like the Pahlavi monarchy, and the totalitarian dictatorship of the Islamic Republic. The suppression of ethnic groups in both regimes is structurally rooted. But under the Pahlavi dictatorship, while violence against ethnic groups was carried out by security forces, police, the judiciary, and military repression, these were not, in themselves, the main cause of the reproduction of violence. What enables these forces to enact violence against ethnic groups, while also allowing them to intensify it, is the latent violence embedded in the specific political structure of Iran. This structural violence permeates all economic, social, ideological, and educational levels of the country.
In a totalitarian dictatorship like the Islamic Republic, the suppression of ethnic groups not only has a structural nature, but the repressive apparatuses themselves are part of the system’s structure, determining the maneuvering capacity and function of the formal state. Perhaps the statement of Mohammad Khatami, as a president, saying, “We were just agents,” or Mir Hossein Mousavi’s reference to the mass executions of the 1980s, where the government allegedly had no role, expresses this reality more clearly. Or the incident where Commander Jaafari, head of the Revolutionary Guards, slapped Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the face—even though Ahmadinejad, as a member of the formal government, appeared to have a higher position—demonstrates that in such governments, the repressive forces do not obey the formal state. Their connection is fundamentally to a supra-governmental entity called the “Supreme Leader” or “Leader,” rather than to the official president. Without attention to this fundamental difference, we would only encounter the superficial manifestations of violence, while the main producer and primary source of violence would remain hidden.
Moreover, this source of violence simultaneously acts as a major class agent, relegating non-Persian citizens to second- and third-class status. The result is that ethnicity becomes a lower-class factor among non-Persians, transforming them into unskilled labor for the benefit of the center. This also exacerbates the social, political, and economic divides between the center and national regions.
For this reason, any response to the issue of violence that separates it from Iran’s political structure and attributes it to an abstract revolutionary space will ultimately engage in meaningless babble against violence. It will battle the proverbial windmills, as Don Quixote did, fighting against the blades instead of the real enemy. Such an abstract perspective on violence also invites an abstract battle against violence, seeking a few symbolic representations, like revolution or overthrow. Some may even go so far in this populist symbol-making that they consider support for free elections in Iran as equivalent to advocating for violent overthrow. Such individuals, no matter what they call themselves, in practice serve as the true supporters of violence in a society where political authority rules over the people through daily brute force. It should be noted that over the past thirty-one years, violence has been carried out by the coalition of clerics and guards. In this case, one must ask: how many clerics and guards participated in or supported the revolution? In reality, violence has been advanced by those who played little role in the revolution. With the recruitment of violent enforcers from among the lumpen elements after the revolution, aside from a few exceptions, violence has essentially been carried out not by revolutionaries but by opponents of the revolution.
2. Since the state is the most organized institution of human life and the central focus for enacting coercion and violence, with all people forced to live under its umbrella, understanding violence without analyzing the nature of the state is impossible. In reality, the nature of the state determines the type, degree, and form of coercion. All states are founded on coercion, but the form of coercion varies depending on the type of government. The kind of coercion used by a liberal government, a classic dictatorship, and a totalitarian regime are significantly different from one another.
A liberal government often cloaks coercion under the guise of law and only takes up arms against society in exceptional circumstances. Hence, the rule of law is one of the foundational slogans of such governments. Classic dictatorships, while sharing some commonalities with totalitarian governments, have repressive apparatuses that play a secondary role, and in general, these governments do not interfere with the private, everyday lives of individuals. Their repressive apparatuses lack the level of independence found in totalitarian regimes. In contrast, a totalitarian government fundamentally exercises authority through overt coercion and constant violence, making the rule of law meaningless, and violence becomes an integral part of its structure. Consequently, it can be said that the type and degree of violence are closely related to the nature and structure of different governments.
In contrast to liberal governments and classic dictatorships, totalitarian regimes use multiple levels of violence, often manifesting as open coercion or brutality. The level of widespread violence employed by such regimes, which targets society as a whole, can obscure the presence of other levels of violence. This is evident in the Islamic Republic as a totalitarian regime: beyond the general level of violence that encompasses the entire society, its mono-ethnic, mono-religious, mono-gender, and mono-lingual structure enforces specific layers of violence against ethnic groups, religious minorities, women, and non-Persian speakers, all of which are fueled by the internal structure of such a government.
The suppression of ethnic groups is one of the main mechanisms by which anti-democratic or repressive policies are advanced within the country. In fact, the repression of ethnic groups is one of the key building blocks of the dictatorship in Iran. Just as democracy has its components, every dictatorship also arises from its own constituent elements. In analyzing dictatorship or tyranny, we must consider the components or building blocks that constitute it. Repressive institutions are necessarily linked to various forms of discrimination. The first elements of repressive apparatuses and the rebuilding of the military machinery after the revolution began with the Islamic government’s attack on national regions, women, and workers. The suppression of ethnic groups was one of the foundational components in rebuilding repressive institutions. Khomeini’s decrees in the early days after the revolution laid the groundwork for violence against women. Without the institutionalized gender discrimination inherent in the structure of the Islamic Republic, would there be a need for morality patrols, Thar Allah, Ansar Allah, and others?
As long as a mono-ethnic and mono-lingual government rules Iranian society, the reproduction of violence and its continued use against ethnic groups will act as an inevitable law governing the relationship between the central government and the ethnic groups. In such a situation, it doesn’t matter whether the political power is structured as a monarchy or a republic, whether the political organs are controlled by reformists or conservatives, because inherent structural violence necessitates suppression. Whether the government is a monarchy, a republic, reformist, or conservative, it only affects the pace and intensity of suppression, not the fundamental nature of repression, which stems from the mono-ethnic structure. In other words, even the establishment of a hypothetical liberal government might end general violence against the country’s citizens but would still maintain special violence against ethnic groups. Therefore, distinguishing between general violence and specific forms of violence brings us closer to understanding the source of violence against ethnic groups and the structural changes necessary to eliminate violence from society.
Structural violence requires not only physical repression but also cultural violence. In line with this, the psychology of racism and the reproduction of racial ideology transmit violence from one generation to the next. This phenomenon also applies in other social areas, including gender discrimination, religion, and class relations, though these are not the primary focus of this text. When parts of society stand indifferent and watch the deprivation of women’s and ethnic groups’ rights and the trampling of the most basic rights of laborers, they are, in effect, normalizing a psychology of accepting violence within society. Beautiful phrases about fighting violence will remain superficial unless we address the roots of violence, organize a serious struggle against it, and move beyond observing its visible forms to recognize its unseen aspects and causes, striving for a fundamental change in the political power structure in Iran.
However, any fundamental change in the political power structure will be impossible through invisible or superficial reforms, such as opening or closing a few newspapers or through temporary relaxations and crackdowns. Democratic transformation in Iran requires a substantial shift in political power.
To eliminate violence, a fundamental transformation of the state's political structure and a fundamental shift in the central power's relationship with the national regions must occur. This would allow Iran’s ethnic groups to participate in the power structure and governance proportionate to their population, thus giving the concept of governance in Iran real, inclusive meaning reflecting its diverse population. Achieving this requires a “transformation” of political power itself. However, no fundamental change can be achieved through partial reforms; it requires moving toward the overthrow of the ruling power. Regarding the specific issue of violence against ethnic groups, even overthrowing the current government alone does not achieve this goal but rather provides the necessary condition for fundamental transformation, though it is not a sufficient condition by itself. To move toward this fundamental transformation, the mono-ethnic governance structure in Iran must be replaced with a multi-ethnic governance structure.
Some intellectuals may label fundamental changes with the substance of radical transformation as violence-oriented, perceiving it as a means that undermines the transformative goal. However, this reflects a superficial understanding of revolution and revolutionary changes, equating them with violence. Neither Marx nor Hannah Arendt—whose writings over the past twenty years have become sources for equating revolution with violence—held this belief. Arendt’s later writings establish such a distinction and even argue that violence is not necessary for revolution. Arendt’s life did not extend to witness the fundamental changes in Eastern Europe, which largely occurred without violence or bloodshed, but her keen insight led her to avoid absolutism in theory and to separate the concept of revolution from violence. Therefore, violence is not an inevitable element in a revolutionary or radical transformation, and fundamental changes can also be achieved without violence, provided that the forces of change rely on a substantial convergence of social movements and shared demands. Whether transformations follow this path depends on various factors, including the regime’s response on one hand and the degree of organization and coordination among different political and social movements as a cohesive “force.” In this situation, the central power’s capacity for violence may be limited or neutralized. Therefore, a correct understanding of the source of violence reproduction and having a sound strategy for combating it can reduce the human and economic costs of opposing the concentrated violence of the Islamic Republic. The various levels of violence imposed by the Islamic Republic necessitate solidarity among the victims of violence, so that, through the exertion of unified power, they can control the regime's capacity for violence.
To avoid the trap of one-sided thinking, I believe in Karl Marx’s distinction between the concepts of force and violence. Marx considered force to be the primary means of revolutionary transformations. Although he sometimes used force and violence as interchangeable terms, Marx understood force in the Newtonian sense of the word—as a relationship between forces. This is why he believed that the balance of forces would determine the outcome of social struggles. David Hume, the conservative English thinker, expressed a similar idea differently, asserting that throughout history, a minority has ruled over the majority, but whenever the majority stands up, it will be followed. It is clear that their reference to force in political and social matters is nothing but the use of social power. In some cases, Marx referred to the cessation of negotiations between employers and workers and their entry into the strike phase as the entry into the stage of force. Clearly, a strike involves protests and refusal to work, which are usually peaceful and based on legal or extralegal forms and differ from the conventional notion of violence. However, this peaceful confrontation of forces represents the element of social power, or force, within each party involved.
This distinction was made 450 years ago by Botero, a contemporary of Machiavelli, who argued that instead of employing naked force or violence, the state should embed force within the law. A century later, Thomas Hobbes emphasized the coercive foundation of law, writing that the sword is the support of the law. Even one of the intellectual forefathers of fascism in Spain, Donoso Cortés, argued that sovereignty is nothing but the exercise of force, whether by sword or by law. At times in modern history, international relations have experienced periods of "armed peace" or "cold war," which represent "forceful" relationships without direct warfare or violence. Thus, one can say that naked force or violence only comprises brief episodes where force and violence align, while force itself is a constant element in social relations. For this reason, I emphasize the “structural force” inherent in the political power of Iran, which, due to the mono-structural nature of its governance and the totalitarian nature of its state system, has taken the form of “structural violence.” In other words, force and violence have become identical in the Islamic Republic.
3. No mono-ethnic system necessarily implies complete alignment of all members of the nation with state policies. But this does not mean there is no alignment in any regard. A racist state may also oppress its own people, but this does not mean the oppressed population lacks racist attitudes toward other nations, which can act as a reinforcing factor for maintaining racism. This process is directed primarily by state institutions and intellectuals, and ordinary people may be passively and unconsciously drawn toward it. Nazi Germany oppressed its own people, yet the majority of those oppressed people became tools for oppressing other nations in Europe. Today in Iran, neither Reza Shah, Mohammad Ali Foroughi, nor the racist-promoting authors of that era like Jamalzadeh, Sadegh Hedayat, Aref, and others are alive. However, the racial ideology of their thoughts has found fertile ground among broad layers of intellectuals, political activists, and ordinary people, who, consciously or unconsciously, support an ideology of political and cultural dominance by one nation over others, normalizing racial supremacy.
In my opinion, attributing the existing violence against ethnic groups solely to revolution or to specific individuals is a misunderstanding of the fundamental and structural reasons for violence, obscuring it in abstract terms. As I previously mentioned, violence against ethnic groups is neither a natural consequence of revolution nor limited to the violent tendencies of a few brutal individuals. At the same time as the Iranian Revolution, another revolution took place on the other side of the world, in Nicaragua, which was more radical in social content than the Iranian Revolution. However, the leaders of the Nicaraguan Revolution did not subject their people to repression, torture, and violence. Or, a hundred years ago, near Nicaragua, the Mexican peasant revolution led by Emiliano Zapata occurred without violence being imposed on the people by them.
Violence against ethnic groups in Iran acquired a structural nature following the February 1921 coup and became a grim legacy inherited by the Islamic government, which, due to its totalitarian nature, has intensified. Consequently, in today’s Iranian state, the principle of the Supreme Leader overlaps with an Aryan-oriented racial rule, and unless we address the root and source of this violence, it will continue to persist in any future government. The beginning of this process was marked by the cultural genocide and physical repression of ethnic groups, including the prohibition of native language education, the unilateral imposition of the Persian language, forced relocations, and in some cases, land confiscation. The beginning of Reza Shah’s rule from a political theory and structural transformation perspective should be regarded as a radical, reactionary transformation since it not only eliminated the democratic achievements of the Constitutional Revolution but also established a mono-structural transformation in the political organization of the state, leading to fundamental changes in the state, ideology, and culture along a racial trajectory.
4. If a government systematically uses various forms of violence against its people, including torture and weapons, should we attribute this to its political system’s nature or its armament? All governments are necessarily armed, yet not all governments use torture and weapons against their own people. Violence fundamentally lies in the nature of the government’s relationship with civil society. In other words, violence is a form of social relationship, a relationship imposed by governments upon society. Generally, people rarely resort to violence, whereas governments frequently do. Studies on the relationship between governments and their citizens reveal that governments have caused more civilian casualties than international wars, and the closer a government is to the totalitarian category, the more horrific the scale of its citizen-killing. The harsher governments make their relationships with society, the more they fuel the potential for violent reactions and raise the level of violence.
It should be noted that in all criminal laws worldwide, the right to self-defense is recognized. This principle is also acknowledged in the relationships between states. Would it be impermissible for the people of a country to defend themselves if a government resorts to violence and crime, thereby destroying individual and public security in society? And if peaceful means of self-defense are rendered impossible by a government and all legal avenues for self-defense are closed, by what means should people defend their right to life? If a government opens fire on its people, turns prisons into places of unchecked violence, and transforms its legal system into a center of lawlessness and injustice, what tools and methods are left for people to defend their rights and lives? Under such conditions, would it be illegitimate to resist the violent aggression of a dictatorial and totalitarian regime by any possible means?
Many of us revere the Constitutional Revolution in Iran. Despite its shortcomings, this revolution introduced the idea of the rule of law, national parliament, freedom, and democracy into Iranian society for the first time. But could the Constitutional Revolution have succeeded without Sattar Khan’s cannons firing?
While we all wish for democratic developments in Iran to proceed peacefully, the actions of the Islamic Republic since its inception have shown complete disregard for even the smallest democratic demands of its people, behaving with greater indifference towards the Iranian populace, especially ethnic minorities, than foreign occupiers would. In this way, it charts a path toward despair with its daily violence.
The Semi-Colonial Relationship of the Central Government with National Regions in Iran
National racism in a multi-ethnic country not only creates a colonial relationship between a mono-ethnic government and ethnic regions but also leads to a distinct class relationship. This dynamic was also true for metropole countries and their colonies. Colonialism created class relations in the colonies, where a local bourgeoisie layer emerged. However, this relationship ultimately worked against the interests of the colonized country as a whole and primarily benefited the bourgeoisie of the colonial state and the colonizing country more broadly. Today, this same situation has a real-world parallel within Iran. The central government in Iran, based on the dominance of Persian nationality, acts in the same way as colonial powers in interethnic relations. Not all the people of England supported their government’s control over 60% of the planet, nor were all English people in power. Similarly, some layers within the colonies opposed colonialism, while others benefited from it. Nonetheless, the relationship was one of domination and subjugation. In Iran, not all Persians are in power, and not all Persians support the central government’s approach to ethnic regions. However, substantial segments of the Persian population benefit from this arrangement, directly or indirectly. In Azerbaijan, too, a layer of bourgeoisie exists that has integrated into the dominant Persian political system, but the majority of Azerbaijanis are the main losers in this arrangement. The fact that Western colonizers came from outside while Iranian colonizers emerged from within does not change the essence of the matter. The core issue remains the same, with only the legal framework differing; we all live under a single political umbrella, where one group dominates others. If a foreign government held the same relationship with the Iranian people as the central government currently does, no one would hesitate to call it imperialistic.
We must not forget that power relations create hierarchical class relationships of dominance and subordination. According to the regime’s own newspapers, during Hashemi Rafsanjani’s era, investment in Kerman was 320 times that of all the divided regions of Azerbaijan. The country’s capital resources have been allocated not only to serve a particular political faction—which is indeed a reality—but also in favor of the overall interests of significant segments of a specific nationality. Today, Azerbaijan has been reduced to supplying raw materials for the Persian regions of Kerman, Isfahan, Yazd, Semnan, and the outskirts of Tehran. Did colonial powers do anything different? This relationship is only maintained through force, just as colonial powers relied on force and violence to sustain their control. This same process is at work in Iran's ethnic regions through the use of power levers. By channeling capital resources to Persian areas, the government promotes migration from ethnic regions, depriving them of physical and human capital. In areas like Ahvaz, this process includes the direct confiscation of land and the expulsion of Arabs from their ancestral lands, turning the lives of Arabs in their homeland into a situation resembling Native American "reservations" in the United States. All of this reveals both the racism of the ruling system and the state-sponsored force and violence supporting it.
Pan-Iranism, Territorial Integrity, and the Taboo of Secessionism
When a government cannot justify itself through political language, it inevitably turns to ideology to do so. The chauvinism of the ruling political power in Iran is inseparably linked to the idea of Pan-Iranism, which hides behind the romantic mystique of "one nation, one language" and has been one of the main drivers of oppression and dictatorship over the past century. This mystique of a single nation and language is necessarily based on denying the existence of other nationalities within Iran and relies on a form of Aryan racism to advance. The Aryan ideology was not native to Iran; like Pan-Iranism, it was influenced by its fascist counterpart, Pan-Germanism, in Germany.
In the early 20th century, within the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, the dominance of the German nationality (centered in Vienna, Austria) faced challenges from the Slavs. The Pan-German movement in Vienna aimed to maintain the political and linguistic dominance of the German nationality in the empire and opposed any cultural rights for the Slavs. Pan-Germanism was a reaction against any reforms regarding the rights of nationalities in the empire. Pan-Iranism in Iran follows the same logic.
The concept of an Aryan race lacks scientific validity and is an obsolete idea in ethnic sociology. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term was used to differentiate between Caucasian and Indo-Iranian languages. In Sanskrit, the word "Arya" means "noble" or "honorable." Later, some extended the classification of Indo-Iranian languages to the Indo-European languages and hypothesized a shared origin. Over time, this linguistic classification took on a racial connotation, and in 1861, Friedrich Max Müller, in his Lectures on the Science of Language, used the term "Aryan" to refer to a racial group. But when Müller realized that a racial interpretation was being inferred from his ideas, he warned that language should not be confused with anthropology.
By the early 20th century, “Aryo-Sophists” or Aryan mystics, theosophists, and social Darwinists had collectively constructed an ideology known as Aryan racism, which had a significant influence on Nazi leaders, especially in the core apparatus of their suppression forces, the SS. Some Iranian intellectuals quickly adopted this ideology, which I will address in more detail at another time. Aryan ideology, like its German version, could easily be used as a tool for the political and cultural oppression of ethnic groups in Iran—and it was.
Given that national identity is shaped by the passage of time, in the fictitious Aryan nationalism promoted by the mono-ethnic state, the existence of other ethnic identities in present-day Iran had to be doubted and negated over time. By imposing the identity of the dominant nationality and its language, the government tried to paint a new identity for these ethnicities that had no connection to their own. They were all labeled as Iranians, descendants of Cyrus and Darius, who supposedly spoke Persian until the Mongol invasion and the influence of Turkic tribes changed their language. Hence, they needed to rediscover their original identity and language. Rewriting history had to serve this new ideology. Consequently, the political power structures and economic resources in a multi-ethnic country were dedicated to justifying mono-ethnic rule and dissolving other identities into the dominant identity. Language, literature, and the education system were transformed into tools to promote this ideology. This explains why Iranian poetry, literature, and historiography became tainted with a form of Aryan racism, influenced by the “Aryo-Sophist” ideology in Germany, particularly during the Nazi era, inevitably pushing the ruling philosophy back toward the past and regression.
Aryan Pan-Iranism is a major obstacle to Iran’s transition to democracy. The obsession with territorial integrity has led Pan-Iranists and a considerable portion of Persian intellectuals to a psychological numbness in the face of such oppression and national injustice in Iran. They unilaterally and prejudicially uphold the legitimacy of one side of the equation—territorial integrity—and, as a result, condemn any demand for rights by ethnic groups as separatism, without pausing to consider that the theory of territorial integrity in a multi-ethnic country can easily lead to national oppression and covert or overt racism and totalitarianism. The dominance of one nation over others has been a primary source of colonialism, extreme nationalism, and fascism, which no free and democratic person could support.
Just as colonialism introduced a new form of violence into global relations, the dominance of one nation over others within states also imposes a violent atmosphere on political life. Within this atmosphere, any disregard for the political and cultural rights of ethnic groups and their suppression is justified in the name of fighting secessionism and defending the territorial integrity of the country. It should be noted that, over the past hundred years, governments have caused more casualties among their own citizens than through international wars. This reality underscores the fact that, in authoritarian states, the primary enemy of the people often lies within their own country and ruling power. Therefore, the path to democracy lies in fighting this internal enemy.
Now, let us frame the issue as Pan-Iranists present it and assume that their claim is correct—that the nationalities and their political parties are secessionist! Do these nationalities in Iran have any rights or not? And if they fail to achieve their rights within the framework of Iran, do they have the right to withdraw from the political umbrella of Iran and establish their own independent sovereignty or not? Or should we say that Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Turkmen, and Baluchis have no rights whatsoever in this land, which is essentially the ultimate aim of the Pan-Iranists? Or, could it be possible to accept that Iran does not solely belong to the Persians but to all the ethnicities residing in it and that the Persian language is only the language of the Persians, not of the Turks, Arabs, and others, thus granting the non-Persian ethnicities rights as well? Another question will then arise: if their rights are not fulfilled, what happens next? Are they condemned to live eternally under despotism without any rights and are forever deprived of the right to choose their form of governance? In this case, shouldn’t secessionism be spoken of as a concept not to be demonized in opposition to territorial integrity? Let us pause a little to examine these two concepts.
The history of our planet over the past few millennia has not encountered any geological revolution leading to geographical splits. No continent has sunk underwater, and no part of this planet has detached from one continent to join another. Europe, Asia, the Americas, and every region of the world remain as they were. Their territorial expanse has maintained its integrity throughout the known thousands of years of civilization, and, as Saadi poetically says, the sun that illuminates the world is the same one that shone upon the resting places of 'Aad and Thamud.
Contrasting with the territorial integrity of our planet, the political and social history of humankind on this unchanged surface has been nothing but "division" and transformation. While the Earth’s territorial integrity has remained intact, the corpses of governments, despite their power and force, have continuously “divided” on its surface, giving way to various small and large governments, states, and empires that eventually met the fate of their predecessors. In this sense, "division" and "territorial integrity" have been nothing more than concepts of power, a struggle over drawing a smaller or larger circle to exercise sovereignty. The question is: who holds power over whom, for what reason, and on what basis of legitimacy? It is precisely here that we encounter the reality behind the idea of secessionism and territorial integrity.
Labeling social and political movements in ethnic regions as secessionist by government agents and their intellectual allies means nothing other than a refusal to recognize the political and cultural rights of nationalities within Iran. The label of secessionism effectively becomes a denial of any rights. In turn, this perception among non-Persian ethnicities emerges: if territorial integrity implies the acceptance of despotism and lack of rights, and defending their democratic rights amounts to secessionism, then they see no option but division and independence to achieve their rights. Equating the defense of democratic ethnic and linguistic rights with secessionism leads to the opposite result and suggests that the only path to these rights is through secession, as they see no other path available. If a nationality defends its political rights, it is labeled as secessionist; if someone speaks of linguistic rights, they are tortured and executed as a secessionist! In reality, those who oppose secessionism are practically accelerating it by portraying it as the only alternative to legitimate ethnic and linguistic democratic demands.
Today, the non-Persian national regions in Iran are under undeclared military rule. The intensity of security forces' presence in Azerbaijan, especially after the events of the 1385 uprising (2006), has created a political and social atmosphere reminiscent of foreign enemies and occupation. Political and cultural activists in Azerbaijan are killed in various ways by security forces. In Kurdistan, Baluchistan, and Ahvaz, they are hanged. Despite this, all nationalities and political parties advocating for their national rights are accused of secessionism, even if such a slogan is not part of their political programs and demands! Moreover, if they propose a federal government as a solution to the national issue, Pan-Iranist government and opposition figures still accuse them of harboring secessionist intentions! In this context, Pan-Iranists are compelled to delve into the minds of these nationalities to uncover and project their secessionist tendencies to the public, thereby legitimizing the suppression and violence against them.
Pan-Iranism hinders political development, supports political and cultural violence against nationalities, and lays the groundwork for the ideology of despotism's survival in Iran. Unfortunately, it encompasses various layers of the ruling regime, the National Front, some royalists, and elements of former leftists.
The denial of nationalities' rights is part of the preservation of injustice in society, primarily acting against the ideology of Pan-Iranists and the theory of territorial integrity, further accelerating centrifugal forces! Anyone indifferent to or defending the suppression and violence against nationalities in Iran under the pretext of preserving territorial integrity is not only undemocratic but can only be labeled as reactionary!
Nationalities in Iran are victims of ongoing violence and carry an open wound. Only by respecting their political, social, and cultural rights can we prevent the continuation of violence, foster public solidarity among the nations in Iran, and empower society toward peaceful coexistence under a political umbrella.
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[1] It is not coincidental that Mr. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, known as Rafsanjani, from the village of "Birman," has changed "Birman" to "Bahrman" on his identification card, refers to Tabriz as "a large village." He has the right; it is ours to be ruled!
[2] Friedrich Max Müller
The original text was published in Farsi in Arash Magazine, Issue 105:
https://iran-archive.com/sites/default/files/2021-09/arash-ghelichkhani-105-106.pdf